During the next two days James went around in a daze. What he had found out about Peter’s death had hit him harder than even he would have imagined. Knowing that Harry knew about it and did nothing caused him such agonising pain that he hardly could stand it. He felt betrayed and confused. The knowledge that Snape had been the one to actually kill Peter and that he had gotten away with it only made his pain worse. Lily tried everything in her power to cheer him up, but somehow she also realized that there was nothing she could say or do to make his pain go away.
The fact that Harry had submerged himself in work since Snape’s revelation didn’t help him deal with his feelings either. Not even seeing Remus having a very brief conversation with Harry through the fire made him feel better. Actually the sight of his friends face, so much older than what he remembered, almost hurt him more than it pleased him.
This morning was no different than the two previous ones. James wandered back and forth listlessly observing as Lily and Jordan once again bickered with each other. Harry was sitting at the Head Table talking to Dean. Their conversation however seemed more serious than usual and Harry hardly looked up from his breakfast plate at all.
Neither James nor Harry noticed Snape entering the Great Hall. But Lily did. He walked fast, as if he was in a hurry. When he reached the Head Table, he didn’t sit down in his seat. Instead he walked over to Harry, dropped what Lily thought looked like a folded note in his lap and then turned and walked out of the Hall.
As Harry unfolded the note and read it, Lily could see the colour drain from his face. He rose so quickly Dean actually had to catch his chair to keep it from falling over. Saying something, that judging from Professor McGonagall’s scowl, didn’t suit a teacher, he threw his napkin on his plate and made his way out of the Hall as fast as he could without running.
Lily quickly grabbed James and started pulling him towards the door and Harry. Confused by the sudden movement, James first protested against leaving the Great Hall not feeling at all up to heading outside. Lily however insisted although she carefully avoided explaining exactly what was going on. Somehow she thought James might very well refuse to come if he suspected seeing Snape again.
The sight that met them when they reached the Entrance Hall was one they would have found inconceivable only a few days before. Snape and Harry were standing very close together, whispering to each other. Harry was still clutching the note Snape had given him and he looked very worried and distressed. The animosity that was usually so prominent between the two was also visibly reduced, even if it was clearly still there.
“You’re absolutely sure?” they heard Harry whisper as they drew closer.
“Of course I am!” Snape hissed annoyed. “It will be all over the Daily Prophet tomorrow morning. It would probably have been today, had not the paper already been written…”
Harry swore silently to himself before nodding towards Snape. Lily found herself wondering how many times she heard him swear in the past three days, thinking that she only heard him swear a handful of times before then.
“At least I have one day,” Harry whispered thoughtfully to Snape. “Thanks,” he then added nearly reflexively. Snape looked at him with raised eyebrows. He then snorted again and turned his heel to Harry and walked off down to the dungeons.
“He really needs to learn how to accept a ‘thank you’,” Harry muttered to himself turning towards the entrance leading to the Great Hall. He started walking back in, past the students coming out. He was nearly in when Lily and Millie passed him, so submerged in their conversation that they didn’t see him. Nor did they hear him over the many students talking, and Harry had to physically grab Millie for them to notice him.
“Millie, I need to speak to you in my office,” Harry said moving them all out of the way of the students now hurrying to get to their classrooms on time.
“But dad, we have Transfiguration now,” Lily objected.
“Well then you will have to tell Professor Thomas where Millie is at the moment,” said Harry firmly. “And tell him that I wish to speak to him too when class is over,” he added. Lily nodded, but still shot Millie a look of surprise at the unusual situation. Millie returned with a shrug as they all headed up the staircase together.
On the third floor Harry took Millie and started walking towards his classroom and office, saying good bye to Lily who still had a few stairs to climb. It was not a difficult decision for James and Lily to decide whom to go with this time and they curiously followed Harry and Millie to Harry’s office.
They were surprised to see the students waiting outside the classroom. They weren’t the only ones. Both the students and Millie seemed surprised at each others presence, but Harry just opened the door to the classroom and let them all in. He took Millie into his office, where he left her sitting on the sofa while he tended to the students waiting in the classroom.
He came back into the office only minutes later, having set the students to write an essay on the subject they were supposed to have their lesson on today. James and Lily looked at each other as he explained this to Millie. They suddenly felt very uncomfortable. Harry wouldn’t neglect a class like that, not if this wasn’t a very serious matter. What they couldn’t figure out was how this was connected to Millie.
Millie seemed to share their anxiety, because she soon asked exactly what they wanted to know, looking apprehensively at her father. Harry sat down next to her in the sofa, suddenly looking very awkward, as if he didn’t know how to start or what to say.
“Millie,” he started. “I guess there is no easy way to tell you this,” he said sighing, ruffling his hair in some vain attempt to find the right words. “I…Last…Maybe it’s better if you just read it for yourself,” he then said, handing her the note Snape had given him.
Slowly and with slightly unsteady hands Millie unfolded the note and read it. Millie made a sharp intake of breath and just as Harry had when he first read the note, she suddenly turned very pale. With fear in her eyes she looked at her father, her lower lip shivering as she tried to speak.
“This can’t be true,” she worded almost soundlessly. “How…When…”
“Late last night or perhaps early this morning, and we don’t know how,” Harry filled in before she had time to finish her question. Looking at his daughter’s frightened face Harry immediately pulled her into her arms where she began shaking as tears filled her eyes.
James and Lily looked at the two of them sitting close on the sofa. Millie curled up in Harry’s arms as he rocked her slowly, stroking her hair as she cried. She looked so small and vulnerable and James and Lily both wondered what could bring her so much fear and pain.
Overwhelmed by curiosity and concern, they both drew closer and looked at the note lying thrown forgotten on the coffee table in front of them. Looking at it James and Lily understood the terror Millie and Harry both must feel at the moment. It consisted of only two words, scribbled down in haste.
Malfoy escaped.
“He will come for you, Millie,” Harry said quietly to the girl in his arms. “You’ll need to be careful “ no more running outside after curfew, you hear?”
Millie looked up, terrified as this was something that she obviously hadn’t had time to consider. Slowly she nodded, but there was also doubt in her eyes.
“But surely he won’t,” she said the fear clearly noticeable in her voice. “It would be foolish. He’ll try to run. Get as far away as possible. Won’t he?” she said trying to convince herself as much as her father. Harry looked at her, concern and care filling his eyes, then he shock his head.
“Millie, you’re his daughter, and whether you want him to or not he does love you. More than I would have thought him capable of loving anyone,” he said calmly. He looked at her, looking like he tried to figure out what to say, and how much. He then sighed and went on. “When I was named as your guardian at his trial he was furious. I don’t think I ever seen him that emotional “ not even when his father died.”
James and Lily watched as Harry struggled to find the right words to explain. Millie was still crying, still curled up next to Harry, but she listened intently, careful not to miss a single word.
“And when you came you missed him so much. I think that’s when I realized that he never given you anything but love. That no matter how horrible he was to others, he did love you.”
Millie shook her head. “No! No one that does things like the ones he has done can love,” she cried.
“I used to believe that too. Then you came into my life, and taught me differently. No one that loves as dearly and deeply as you did then, could have been unloved. I never loved my aunt and uncle. I use to wish that someone would come and take me away from there, but you “ you missed Draco and Pansy with all of your heart.”
“Don’t say that!”
“But it’s true, you did. Millie there is nothing wrong with that. You loved them because you didn’t know what they were. You only knew that they were your parents, and that they loved you. Of course you missed them. I would’ve been more worried about you if you hadn’t.”
“Didn’t you hate it? I mean…Draco killed…” swallowing Millie stopped, unable to finish the sentence. “Wasn’t it hard?” she then asked faintly.
“Everything was hard that year, Millie. When you first came to us, I was…well horribly lost. I missed the daughter I was never allowed to know. Felt responsible for her death. I wasn’t a very good father, and I definitely was not a good husband,” Harry said with a sad smile.
“Why would you feel responsible? You didn’t kill her!” Millie sad looking rather surprised.
“But I did make a mistake,” Harry said regretfully. “I was a trained Auror. I’d spent the better part of eight years training for or being in situations like that one. Rule number one: don’t ever turn your back to your enemy! When Lily ran out into the battlefield I reacted like a father “ not an Auror. I turned my back on Draco and I will always wonder what would’ve happened if I hadn’t. If I had let Ginny take care of Lily, and neutralised Draco first, would I have been able to stop Bellatrix too? Would Molly then be alive?”
“But…” Millie started sounding very upset.
“Millie, it’s OK. I learned to accept what happened years ago, even if a part of me will always wonder,” Harry said soothingly, still stroking Millie’s hair. She still looked uncertain, but she did let him talk without interruptions.
“The reason I’m telling you this is because I need you to understand what I was like then, when it had just happened. After all you came to us only a few months after Molly’s death. And while I have learned to live with this now, that first year; the guilt was eating me up. I though of little else, and shut everybody out, including your mother,” Harry said reminiscently. For the first time since the news of Snape’s involvement in Peter’s death James actually paid attention to what was going on around him, and he and Lily listened almost as intently as Millie did as Harry continued his story.
“Your mother was very upset about what had happened, as were we all. I should have been there for her, but I couldn’t stand hearing her crying, especially at night. So I spent my nights sitting in one of the chairs in the living room until she went to sleep, or until I fell asleep in the chair.” Harry sighed and closed his eyes for a moment before he continued; making James and Lily acutely aware of how much pain he must have been in.
“That’s where you came in, Millie. You wouldn’t let me be alone. You used to fall asleep sitting in my lap. Every night you got out of bed and came down to me to crawl up into my lap. Then you would ask if I was sad, and insist that we be sad together. You had this notion that if we missed our loved ones together it wouldn’t hurt so much,” Harry said with a smile. But Millie didn’t see Harry smiling as he looked at her. She had her eyes fixed on her hands resting in her lap.
“Silly huh?” she said quietly.
“No it wasn’t. It was just what I needed, what we both needed. Although I never did understand why you picked me instead of Ginny,” Harry said with another smile, cupping his hand around Millie’s chin making her to look at him.
“You had no parents,” Millie said quietly when their eyes met. Harry looked at her with surprise.
“That’s one of the first thing I remember, you telling me that you knew what it was like to grow up without your parents. Telling me that it was OK to miss them. Everyone else told me too be glad they were gone, but you told me that it was OK to miss them. You understood.”
“I cannot believe you remember that,” Harry said stroking Millie’s hair again. She shrugged, but still looked sad.
“I don’t understand how you could tell me that,” Millie continued. “After what…he…did, who could have blamed you if you…I mean I look so much like him,” she said quietly, once again looking down on her hands, new tears forming in her eyes.
A memory from their first day surfaced in Lily; Millie’s voice in the dark of the room at the Burrow, “…if I just didn’t look so much like him.” Suddenly the full impact of her wish became clear. The full extent to which she hated her own appearance, how deeply she wished she had another name, that she didn’t have Draco’s blood in her veins.
“Millie some things you need to understand. Not all my reasons for taking you in were noble. And I’m not always proud of why I did what I did. But I did promise myself that I would never let my anger and hatred of Draco effect the way I treated you.”
“What do you mean not noble?” Millie interrupted him. James and Lily too wanted to know. They had been wondering why he and Ginny would have agreed to raise Millie after what Draco had done.
Harry sighed. He didn’t seem as if he wanted to answer that question and for a moment James and Lily thought he wouldn’t. But then Harry nodded slowly and started to speak again.
“That is something I wished I would never have to tell you,” he started. “But since you asked, I do believe you have the right to know. But before I do tell you my reasons there is something I need you to know,” he said watching Millie waiting for some kind of response. A nod seemed to satisfy him and so he ventured on.
“I love you Millie, no less than if you had been my biological child. You are my child! You became my daughter sitting in my lap that first year. There would be no possibility for me to love you more than I do, and the same thing goes for your mother. I need you to know that.” Millie nodded again.
“Good, now I also need you to keep that in mind when I tell you what I am about to tell you. To know that we both love you immensely.” Again Harry waited for her to nod before he went on.
“There were several reasons for us to take you in. But if we are to settle on the main ones, there were, at least as far as I was concerned, three of them. Both logical and emotional.”
“What was the logical one?” Millie asked curiously, although Lily suspected her reason for starting with logic might have to do with fear of the emotional reason or reasons as well as curiosity. Harry too seemed relieved to begin with this and didn’t hesitate before he spoke.
“I’ve told you what I know of Voldemort’s upbringing. That his muggle father left his mother when he found out she was a witch. That he was put in a muggle orphanage when his mother died giving birth to him. That he always hated muggles as a result of this. That he blamed all muggles for the horrors in his life.” Millie nodded slowly, but James and Lily was stunned. They hadn’t known Voldemort wasn’t a pureblood. They heard rumours within the Order, but they always thought that was utter nonsense. After all it made no sense. Why would Voldemort want to protect purity among wizards if he himself wasn’t a pureblood? Still Harry seemed sure enough. Their thoughts on the matter were however diverted as they listened to Harry continue to talk.
“Well one of the reasons we took you in was to prevent history from repeating itself. This was also the reason that persuaded the Ministry to go along with our suggestion.”
“You were afraid that I would become like Draco,” Millie exclaimed, pain very visible in her face.
“Millie you’re not born good or evil. You become what you are raised to be. No one knows what would have happened if Voldemort’s father had been a decent guy, or if someone had cared enough about him to teach him right from wrong. If you’re never loved, how are you ever going to learn what love is all about?”
“You did! Your aunt and uncle didn’t love you,” Millie objected.
“But I was still touched by love. My mother’s sacrifice was in my blood, and when I came to Hogwarts I got friends and through them a family. I did learn about love. But you’re still right. You cannot blame Voldemort’s evil solely on the lack of love when he was a child. He chose to become a murderer, all on his own. We just wanted to make sure that the likelihood of you making the same choice as Voldemort or Draco was as small as possible.”
“But why you? That could’ve been insured by any wizarding family,” Millie said still confused.
“There was no one else, Millie. Draco’s mother wanted you of course, but the Ministry was not about to let Narcissa raise another child, especially since she was still suspected of being a Death Eater at that time. Of the other wizarding families, few wanted to take in a Malfoy. Of those who would have wanted to, no one dared because of the risk of being associated with Death Eaters. So you see, Millie “ it was either us or an orphanage. We preferred it to be us.”
Millie nodded slowly as the news sunk in. Watching her James and Lily felt terribly sorry for her. They had grown so used to thinking about her as their granddaughter that they sometimes forgot that she hadn’t always lived with Harry and Ginny. They couldn’t help but to wonder how a child at five managed to overcome loosing both her parents and her grandmother.
“You said there were emotional reasons as well,”
“Yes I did,” Harry said with a deep sigh. “Two of them actually, one of which is far better than the other.”
“So tell me about that one first then.” Harry smiled alongside his parents. She was still making this easy for him.
“Alright then. That’s simple. I wanted you to have a better childhood than I had. I know what it’s like not to be wanted, not to be understood “ and I didn’t want you to go through it.”
“Why? I mean I’m a Malfoy,” Millie said hesitantly.
“You were also five years old. No matter how horrible I felt I knew that I couldn’t take out what happened on a five-year-old little girl. Nor could I stand to see others do it so easily. Because you see people were. There were many who thought all Malfoys, including you, should be punished for Draco’s and Pansy’s actions. I couldn’t accept that. I know far to well what it’s like to be treated badly because of who your parents were.” Millie nodded. She seemed to understand. James and Lily however weren’t sure they did. Especially James was still not sure that these reasons were enough to take on the daughter of the man who robbed you of your child.
“The other reason you had, what was that?” Millie asked. Harry frowned, not looking too happy about discussing this reason at all.
“I want you to know that this is a reason I’m not proud of. And I want you to remember what I told you about my state of mind back then.” Millie nodded to show she remembered.
“OK,” continued Harry. “I told you that I blamed myself for what happened. Well that is only partly true. Most of all I blamed Draco, and when I wasn’t submerged in grief or my own guilt I was almost consumed with thoughts of revenge.”
“I don’t understand how that has anything to do with you agreeing to become my guardian,” Millie said sounding very puzzled.
“I wanted Draco to hurt the way I and Ginny was hurting. I wanted him to suffer the way we had. I knew that there was only one thing that would make Draco to hurt like that “ the knowledge that I was raising his daughter. That while he rotted away at Azkaban, you were living with me. I even managed to persuade myself that it was fair. His daughter for mine. Now I can talk about my other, nobler, reasons all I want “ but it was the thought of causing Draco pain that made me push the issue.” Harry looked at his daughter with concern. She had stopped crying, and was biting her lower lip to stop it from trembling.
“Millie, I didn’t know then that I would love you the way I do. I may not have had the best reason for wanting to take care of you, but I have never regretted my decision. Not once. Never forget that you are my daughter. Not because of some decision I made out of anger, but because of who you were. Do you understand?” Harry asked holding her hands between his.
“I reckon I do,” Millie said slowly. Still very taken aback with all this new information. Millie strained herself not to start crying again, having a difficult time managing to do so when Harry once more took her into his arms and rocked her as a little girl.
Lily watched them for a while thinking about the new information. When she heard about Harry and Ginny losing their daughter she had thought about how horrible things must have been for Harry. Now however she couldn’t stop thinking about Ginny. She had grown very fond of Ginny during the months that had passed and hearing Harry talk about what must have been a horrible time in their lives filled her with compassion. Ginny must have been heartbroken by the loss. To then have her husband avoiding her, not being there for her “ how horrible must that have been?
She shot a look at her husband. How much his son was like him. She found herself wondering what would have happened if Voldemort succeeded in killing Harry. What if they had lived instead of him, would James then have pushed her away like Harry had Ginny? Would he have taken responsibility and blamed himself? Somehow she thought he might have. She shuddered and pushed the thought out of her head. Funny, she had found herself doing that a lot lately.
Harry and Millie didn’t part until the bell that marked the end of class rang. Forced to leave, Harry went up to the classroom to collect the essays the class had worked on. While he was gone Millie dried her tears and tried once again to put on a strong face. She watched as Harry came back down, carrying a stack of parchments in his arms.
Harry put down the parchments on his desk and turned again towards Millie.
“Will you be OK?” he asked. Millie nodded her response. “Very well. If you need me you know where to find me.”
“I know,” Millie said quietly and started heading for the staircase.
“Millie, one more thing. This will be in the papers tomorrow. People will talk, so be prepared.” Millie seemed for a second to be taken aback by this but collected herself soon enough.
“And I meant it when I said that I want you to be careful. No more breaking the curfew and I am going to revoke your Hogsmeade pass,” Harry continued. He ignored Millie’s startled look and went on. “I know it might seem unfair, but I don’t want you outside Hogwarts grounds until he’s caught. I couldn’t stand losing you, neither could your mother. And he will come for you “ never doubt that,” he finished. Millie looked at him for a while then she went over to her father and gave him a hug.
“I’ll be careful, I promise,” she said quietly before she picked up her book bag from the floor and climbed the stairs and left the room. Harry watched her leave and sighed to himself when she closed the door behind her. Both James and Lily knew he didn’t have time to ponder on what happened, and just as they suspected Harry soon turned over to his desk. Picked up another stack of parchments and left the office.